


The one thing I can't stand to lose

by Elisexyz



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Jessica Logan Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 21:22:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16542494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: “Alright, stay still,” Jessica orders, her voice quivering a bit around the beginning of the sentence but overall steady. To be honest, even if her hands pressing against his abdomen hurt like hell and feel very real, he kind of is under the impression that he’s having a very vivid, blood-loss-induced hallucination.“Jess?” he chokes out, a small smile making its way on his lips in spite of everything, because, hell, if he’s going to die stranded in the past at least she’s going to be the last thing he sees – or deludes himself that he’s seeing, but really, it makes no difference at this point.





	The one thing I can't stand to lose

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fill for the "Bleeding Out" prompt [on my Bad Things Happen Bingo card on Tumblr](http://heytheredeann.tumblr.com/post/179834050704/bleeding-out-fill-for-the-bad-things-happen). Because I love these two and I really wanted to write something for them. ~~Flynn wasn't even supposed to be in this fic, but he managed to sneak in, ops.~~

“Alright, stay still,” Jessica orders, her voice quivering a bit around the beginning of the sentence but overall steady. To be honest, even if her hands pressing against his abdomen hurt like hell and feel very real, he kind of is under the impression that he’s having a very vivid, blood-loss-induced hallucination.

“Jess?” he chokes out, a small smile making its way on his lips in spite of everything, because, hell, if he’s going to die stranded in the past at least she’s going to be the last thing he sees – or deludes himself that he’s seeing, but really, it makes no difference at this point.

“Yeah,” she breathes. Wyatt has to blink a couple of times for his eyes to properly focus, but he manages to see how distraught she looks: on one hand, that means it’s _bad_ – not that the pain and dizziness weren’t already a pretty strong indicator –, on the other, a part of him is childishly rejoicing – _She still loves me!_

“Where’s your damn team?” she asks, urgently, looking around as if she was just waiting for them to walk around the corner.

Maybe it’s good that they aren’t here: Wyatt is pretty sure that that’d end with Jess with a bullet in her head, courtesy of Flynn.

“Rendezvous point?” he guesses. It’s been a while since when they’ve split up, they are probably waiting for him by now.

“Okay. Where is it?”

“Bit far.”

Jessica curses under her breath. He watches as she slowly eases the pressure on the wound to take a quick look under her hand, only to curse again and go back to pushing as if she was trying to split him in half. He can’t help the pained hiss that leaves his lips, but it’s quickly followed by a smile when she apologizes, looking just as desperate as he remembers feeling when she refused to go back to him.

“You’re helping me,” he comments, still smiling and probably inappropriately overjoyed, considering the circumstances. Now he _knows_ that he can get her back— or could have, if his time ends up running out. It’s weird, coming face to face with death: it may no be the first time, but there’s something in him that screams and kicks, scared of what’s to come, clingy towards life. That part of him holds on even tighter upon seeing Jessica giving a damn, but there’s also something in him that finds peace and solace in her love, that thinks: _Hey, at least I go happy_.

Or maybe he’s just getting drowsy and weird because there’s his blood spilled all over the floor, that might be it.

“I’m not going to let you die,” she says, disbelievingly, as if it was _absurd_ to think that she could do anything else. Wyatt kinda wants to laugh.

“I don’t suppose you have a phone on you,” she adds, after a pause, and he has seen that look before: it’s the stubbornness that pushes soldiers to keep fighting for those who are already half-way to the grave, even as realism tries to push acceptance into their mind. It’s a desperate kind of fighting, and Wyatt wants so _bad_ for her to succeed, for them to get more time and make it _right_.

“No.”

Jessica sighs and takes a look at their surroundings again, looking for a way out that probably isn’t even there. Because she so desperately wants for him to live.

“I love you,” he says, because it’s true and he wants her to _hear_ it, he wants it to be an apology for causing Rittenhouse to steal her life and a thank you for loving him anyway.

She stares, shaking her head slightly as a self-deprecating smile twists her lips. “Me too,” she finally chokes out. “But we are not saying our goodbyes now,” she adds then, quickly. “I’m helping you up, and I’m taking you to the others, they’ll take you back to the present and they’ll have a doctor fix you up. Clear?”

“I don’t know if I can walk,” he admits. He surely can _try_ , but everything keeps spinning around every bunch of seconds even as he’s sitting.

“I’ll drag you if necessary,” she retorts, resolutely, and Wyatt can’t help grinning.

He’s smiling a lot for a man about to die, it’s kind of ridiculous. But Jessica is there, and she loves him: there are few things that matter more than that.

 

 

When he wakes up, his head is killing him. He grunts a complaint, which quickly turns into a coughing fit, given how hoarse his throat is.

“Oh, Sleeping Beauty is finally awake,” comments a voice that he recognizes a bit late as Flynn’s, but he gets distracted when someone promptly helps him sipping a glass of water, and that someone is _Jessica_.

That, or it’s Lucy and he’s having hallucinations. If it were Lucy, that would explain Flynn being creepy and standing a few feet away from them.

Wyatt blinks a couple of times, both because his eyes are _burning_ and because he’s half-expecting Jessica’s face to morph into someone else’s.

“Better?” she asks, instead, and she’s a bit hesitant but she offers a smile nonetheless.

“Jess?” he calls, instead of answering, still fearing that he will soon wake up from what is starting to feel a lot like a fever dream. Well, there are no flying pigs around, but Flynn apparently was watching him sleep, which is arguably _weirder_ than a pig taking off and channelling its inner pigeon. Not to mention that he is in the company of Jessica and he hasn’t shot her yet. Way too decent to be the real Flynn.

“Yes,” she smiles, gently pushing him down the pillow. Only when he relaxes he realizes how _tense_ he was.

“What happened? How are you— where _are_ we?” he asks, his voice still a bit hoarse and his eyes darting around the room. It looks like his room in the bunker, but _how_ is Jessica there?

“Back at the bunker,” she explains. “They, uh, gave me a ride. And let me stay here.”

Wyatt’s eyebrows shoot up, and he automatically sends Flynn a very suspicious look.

He shrugs. “She did drag your ass back to the Lifeboat,” he points out. “And she’s not a guest, more something half-way between a prisoner and a protected witness. I’m the lucky baby-sitter who gets to follow her around and shoot her in the back if she tries anything funny.” The comment makes Wyatt’s temper flare up, but he’s too tired to do anything but growl at him, and at the very least it explains what the hell Flynn’s doing at his bedside in a reasonable way. Which also means that this might just be real after all. “I have to say, so far she’s just been making heart-eyes at you drooling, very boring,” Flynn adds, because apparently he has to be a dick even at a recently almost-deceased man.

“How long was I out?” he asks, turning back towards Jessica before he gives in to the temptation of trying to get up and punch him in the throat.

“You’ve been drifting in and out for a couple of days,” she explains, and now that he’s taking a better look at her he’s pretty sure that she looks almost as bad as he feels.

“Are you okay?” he frowns.

“Me?” Jessica scoffs, raising her eyebrows. “I’m whole, unlike you. I _did_ have to wait for Rufus to come back with the Lifeboat while I was stuck with _him_ in the eighteenth century, but aside from that—”

“I happen to be outstanding company, thank you very much,” Flynn interjects. Wyatt scoffs, _loudly_ , which he regrets very much when pain shoots through his chest. He hisses a curse, even though he knows from personal experience that the painkillers are probably not completely out of his system yet, because that pain was not even close to how bad it could actually get.

Still, ouch.

“We should alert the others,” Flynn points out.

Wyatt thinks that it’s an _outstanding_ idea, mostly because he wants him out of his hair as soon as possible and he wants some alone time with Jessica. She’s _there_. Which means that she’s not with Rittenhouse. Which means that they could be _together_ , a family, the three of them.

Much to his dismay, though, Jessica nods in Flynn’s direction, squeezes Wyatt’s hand with a small smile and then moves to get up.

Wyatt’s reaction is very instinctive and not too dignified: he holds onto her hand and he lets out a ‘Wait’ that sounds a little thin and scared. He doesn’t want her to leave: he still can hardly believe that she’s _there_. That she saved him. That she _chose_ him.

He’s not ready to watch her walk away again.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” she assures, although she looks guilty.

“Can’t _he_ go?” Wyatt protests, fingers still latched onto hers and his heartbeat faster than normal.

“I’m not authorized to leave her alone,” Flynn explains.

Wyatt groans. “It’s only a _minute_ —”

“No can do.”

“What kind of stupid rule is that?!”

“One that _everybody_ agreed to,” Flynn shrugs, and Wyatt has the very distinct feeling that he’s enjoying this. Bastard. “You know, America, democracy, that sort of thing. Your wife can stay where we sleep, but she needs to be monitored.”

“So you watch her 24/7?” Wyatt asks, and the whole thing doesn’t stand all too well with him. Yes, Jessica betrayed them, but she came back, and _that_ _guy_ was literally trying to kill them not that long ago and _he_ doesn’t get surveillance, does he? No, he gets a gun and he’s even tasked with shooting his wife ‘if necessary’, as if he wasn’t a trigger-happy bastard.

What the hell is everybody thinking?

“I take turns with agent Christopher,” Flynn shrugs.

Well, that’s very nice. Great, even. So sensible of them. Wyatt still doesn’t want Jessica to leave his sight, not now – possibly not ever.

“It’ll only be a moment,” Jessica intervenes, and Wyatt remembers that tone all too well: whenever he was feverish he got annoyingly clingy, and she would have to either find a way to sweettalk him into letting her go or to wait until he fell asleep. She would always slide her fingers through his hair, the way she’s doing now, and look down on him with a soft smile that never failed to make him feel warm. “Promise,” she adds. “Can you wait for a moment?”

“Yeah—yeah, fine,” he mumbles, eyes avoiding hers because he feels awfully on _edge_ about this, in spite of his words. He wants her _there_.

“Great,” she says. She leans in and drops a kiss on his forehead, and that too feels achingly familiar. For a moment, it’s like being back to happier times, before her death, before Rittenhouse and time travel.

Then she goes, and he knows that he’ll be holding his breath until he’ll see her walk back through the door.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including: 
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> If you don’t want a reply, for any reason, feel free to sign your comment with “whisper” and I will appreciate it but not respond!


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